The American Revolution: Two Centuries of Interpretation, edited by Edmund S. Morgan
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965
179 pages, no index, no photos
Library: 973.3 M847
Front Matter
What was the American Revolution? The revolt of an oppressed people against a tyrannical king or the refusal of an ungrateful people to honor ancient debts. A rising of the common man against an aristocratic ruling class or a defense of traditional rights by a united citizenry? A war of national liberation or a civil war?
It has been called all these things; and the way men have viewed it over the years reveals as much about the changing character of the nation the Revolution brought into being as it reveals about the Revolution itself.
In searching for the meaning of the American Revolution, the essays collected in this volume-ranging from David Ramsay's penetrating appraisal of 1788 to analysis by modern scholars-draw the reader into the debate. Whether he agrees with Friedrich Gentz in 1800 that the Revolution was a simple defense of right against wrong or with those later historians who have found the problem more complex, the reader will enjoy responding to the challenge that the Revolution presents to every American's understanding of his country, his times, and himself.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Interpreting the American Revolution
1. David Ramsay: from History of the American Revolution
2. Friedrich Gentz: from The Origin and Principles of the American Revolution, Compared with the Origin and Principles of the French Revolution
3. George Bancroft: from History of the United States of America from the Discovery of the Continent
4. Charles Kendall Adams: "Some Neglected Aspects of the Revolutionary War"
5. J. Franklin Jameson: from The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement
6. Daniel J. Boorstin: from The Genius of American Politics
7. Eric Robson: from The American Revolution in its Political and Military Aspects
8. Lawrence Henry Gipson: "The American Revolution as an Aftermath of the Great War for the Empire, 1754-1765"
9. The American Revolution: Revisions in Need of Revising, Edmund S. Morgan
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